


Dyslexia Friendly Fonts

by shalako



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Belle is both a librarian and a tutor, Dyslexic Gold, F/M, Neal and Gold have a great relationship, Neal is also dyslexic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shalako/pseuds/shalako
Summary: The 21st Century brings with it a wave of new technology. New fonts stop letters from jumping around before Gold's eyes, autocorrect fixes his spelling, and the little robot Neal gave him for his birthday reads books aloud.So maybe it's time to work on his high school diploma.





	Dyslexia Friendly Fonts

It didn’t matter how much time passed, and it didn’t matter how polite they were to each other, Belle always blushed when she saw Mr. Gold. It wasn’t a nice blush - not a soft, pink, crushing-on-someone-cute blush. It was one of the red, angry blushes of embarrassment that spread from her chest all the way up to her forehead and wouldn’t go away.

Belle had been living in the apartment above the library for three years now - three years without Gold as her landlord, which meant it was  _ four  _ years since she was late on rent that one time, and she still blushed every time she saw him. He wandered into her library, not even glancing at her as he swept past the front desk, and Belle felt her face growing impossibly hot.

She’d moved out of her father’s house rather late, at twenty-seven, and had moved into one of Mr. Gold’s apartments. It was extremely nice - he’d split an old townhouse into two apartments, and Belle and her roommate, Ariel, got the left side - spacious, with two bedrooms. It came with furniture - nice furniture - and Gold always responded quickly to any complaints they had. When their air conditioner started leaking after the first month, he came over and showed them how to change the filter. 

But they’d been late on rent their very first month. Belle closed her eyes at the thought of it. With the money she and Ariel made, rent should have been no problem, but neither of them got paid the right amount that month. Belle’s father, furious at her for moving out, had withheld her pay, and Ariel had been unexpectedly fired a few weeks before rent was due. They’d scrambled for cash; Belle found her state tax return - pitifully small - and cashed it, and then the two of them went to the bank for a loan.

Despite the horror stories Belle heard from other people in town, Gold didn’t show up on her doorstep on rent day. In fact, she didn’t hear from him until ten days after the fact, when he called the house with a gentle reminder that after today, she would have to pay the late fee. Belle had explained the situation - about the money, about Ariel’s frantic search for a job, about their now opposing shifts and the difficulty they had making it to Gold’s pawnshop during the day. And Gold had said, “It’s fine, I understand. Let me know when you’re free and I’ll come over to collect it.”

He’d gathered it up the next day, dropping in on Belle at the flower shop. He waived the late fee - “So long as people are paying, I’m willing to work with them” - and left without another word. Belle had been shocked; she’d heard of Gold evicting people when they were a day late, and to her shame, she’d believed it.

Now she stood in the library and tried to tame her blush. It had finally faded when Gold showed up again, carrying two Nancy Drew books. Belle felt an odd pang of affection at that; for some reason, Gold was always checking out children’s books. For a while, she’d thought maybe he had a kid, but she was starting to think he read them for the same reason Belle read books like  _ Matilda  _ when she was feeling down. Children’s books were comforting.

Belle scanned the books and handed them over, a receipt with the due date tucked into the first book. Gold accepted them with a murmured thanks and left the library.

Belle sighed. She had a long day today - at the start of the month, she’d decided to take on a second job of sorts, tutoring adults who needed to get their GED. There were a lot of them in this area; many teenagers dropped out of high school to join family businesses - they became farmers or fishermen. Tonight she was meeting with a twenty-five-year-old who had been dismayed when the Army recruiter told him he needed a high school diploma to enlist.

Belle thought of Gold and his Nancy Drew books. Previously, he’d checked out  _ Mary Poppins _ ,  _ Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH _ ,  _ Peter Pan _ , and  _ Chitty Chitty Bang Bang _ . She wondered if these were books he’d loved as a child - and then she tried to picture Gold as a little boy, with his mother reading to him, and wrinkled her nose. It was hard to picture Gold any younger than he was now.

Belle glanced up at the clock and sighed. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

It was seven at night, and Gold sat on his couch with the first Nancy Drew book open, his eyebrows furrowed. He was only on page two, and he’d been reading for nearly twenty minutes. It had taken him forever to decipher the titles in the library today - when the letters finally unscrambled enough for him to make it out, he’d sighed in relief and snatched up two, hoping to God that he was grabbing the first two, and not some random books in the middle of a series.

Nancy Drew. Neal had loved these books when he was a kid. He’d devoured them in one sitting, usually over a meal. They made frequent stops at the library, and within a few weeks, Neal was re-reading the whole series. It made Gold’s head spin. Twenty minutes - twenty-five now - and he was on page two.

_ Where did Neal get his brains _ ? Gold wondered desperately. Neal had been diagnosed with dyslexia in third grade, and when the school counselor explained what that was - letters dancing around the page, morphing into other letters, shrinking and expanding at will - Gold’s heart had started thumping, and he’d lost track of what he was being told. Dyslexia. That made sense, it explained why he had trouble reading … but at the same time, it didn’t. Because Neal had the same thing, and he excelled at school. He read books - huge books - like it was no big deal.

In third grade, after being diagnosed with dyslexia, Neal had read Hardy Boys one week and then moved on to Count of Monte Cristo the next. He got moved up a grade in math. His teachers praised his creativity and showed Gold the stories he’d written in English class. It was baffling. Gold still remembered stumbling across a notebook full of writing when Neal was eleven. He’d stared at the first page for ages, finally working out that it was a handwritten fantasy book, and then he’d sat Neal down and said, “Neal, I know we don’t have a lot of money, but if you ever want a book, we always have room in our budget for that. You don’t have to copy down the books you want from the library.”

It wasn’t a library book. It was a book Neal himself had written, taking up 75 pages of notebook paper in cramped, boxy writing. And there were words misspelled, Gold was sure, but that wasn’t really the point - the point was that Gold couldn’t blame his own stupidity on dyslexia.

He hadn’t attended school until he was twelve. Gold remembered vividly, when he was maybe five or six, asking his father why he wasn’t in school with the other kids, and Malcolm had said, “You didn’t pass the test, kid. Everyone has to take a test before going to school, to weed out the stupid ones.”

When Malcolm left, Gold was ten years old, almost eleven, and he spent a full year living on his own, first in his dad’s abandoned apartment, and then on the street. He was picked up when he was twelve and placed with two old woman tenuously related to his father - they’d never met Malcolm, and had no idea Gold existed, but they took him in and sent him to school, and Gold lasted maybe a year - a twelve-year-old struggling with the lowest-level material - before he was given an IQ test and deemed inferior, just like his father had said.

So he’d left. Dropped out. He’d worked with his aunts instead, learning what he could from them. They’d moved to Maine when he was in his thirties, and when they died, they left Gold their land. He’d gotten where he was today entirely by luck.

Gold sighed, rubbing his eyes, and tried to concentrate on the book.  _ Peter Pan _ had been easier. It was his father’s favorite book, and Gold had owned it as a child. He already knew the story. The most he knew about Nancy Drew was that she solved mysteries. 

He was eternally grateful that Neal never needed help with homework as a child. Now he was off at college, working on his master’s, far more educated than his father would ever be. 

Gold shut the book and glanced over at his laptop - barely used. He’d gotten it as a gift for Neal last year, only to find out Neal already had one, a birthday present from his girlfriend. Gold had opened it once, gotten confused, and shut it. He’d seen Neal use computers a million times, but every time he tried, he got intimidated. He knew he could look up things - resources for people with dyslexia, ways to study for a high school diploma - but that was only if he could manage to type the words correctly. And that was a big if.

With another, heavier sigh, Gold opened the book again.

* * *

Belle unlocked the library door, turned on the lights, and took up her spot behind the front desk. Barely a minute later, she glanced up as the library door opened, completely unsurprised to see Mr. Gold. He always returned his books as soon as the library opened on the due date. A bit annoying, actually - Belle used to be able to come in at six, open the library, turn on the computers, and wait a few hours for patrons. Now, if she wanted the computers to be on when Mr. Gold arrived, she had to be early. Which, granted, wasn’t really a big deal considering she lived on the second floor.

“You like the books?” she asked. Gold stopped walking abruptly and looked at her, seeming almost horror-struck. It was a baffling reaction, and Belle chose to ignore it. “I loved Nancy Drew when I was a kid,” she said. “I wanted to be just like her.”

“Oh,” Gold said. He stood there awkwardly, the books tucked under his arm, and didn’t say anything else. After a long moment, he stepped forward and placed the books gently into the dropbox.

“Did you read her when you were a kid?” Belle asked. “Most of the time, I think girls read Nancy Drew and boys read Hardy Boys. But I liked both.”

“I …” Gold hesitated. “I didn’t read a lot as a boy.”

“Oh,” Belle said. She looked at Gold - small and thin, always sharply dressed, elegant - and realized she’d always assumed he would have been a quiet, intelligent child, the kind who read books on the playground and wore pressed khakis and button-up shirts. Now she tried to picture him any other way - it caused a great deal of cognitive dissonance. “What did you do, then?” Belle asked. “As a kid?”

As soon as she asked it, she flushed, certain Gold wouldn’t answer. They weren’t exactly friends, after all - they’d never had a conversation this long before, and he had to find it annoying. But instead, Gold seemed to consider the question seriously.

“I got in a lot of fights,” he said. “And I found ways to turn a profit.”

Belle couldn’t help but smile. “Like what?”

Gold shuffled his feet. “Well, I -- at school, we all got bottles of milk with our food. I couldn’t afford the school lunches, so … I’d ask one of the other boys, who was lactose intolerant, for his milk. And then I’d take a collection. Uh, people would make a pile of food from the school lunches and lunches they brought from home, and they’d all put in a dollar. I mixed all the food together in the milk bottle and drank it. If I could get it all down, I got to keep the money.”

His voice got quieter as he spoke and a faint blush covered his cheeks - Belle got the distinct impression that Gold regretted telling this story before it was even done.

“What else?” she asked, amused. Gold hesitated.

“Uh, I - my father and I always dressed in … strange clothing. Very colorless and shapeless. With scarves, and beads, and braids - he wanted to be a Lost Boy, and that was how he figured Lost Boys look. So when I was maybe seven, I convinced a bunch of neighborhood kids I was a wizard, and I started giving lessons in witchcraft.”

Belle stifled a laugh, and Gold noticed, giving her a hint of a smile.

“There were other things,” he said, “but they were, ah, a lot less … pleasant.”

“Why were you always looking for money?” Belle asked. Gold’s eyebrows shot up, and she quickly explained herself. “I mean, were you saving up for something? Like a BB gun, or …?”

“Uh …” Gold’s mouth opened but nothing came out. He shook his head mutely, closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Uh, I … no, I was … I was saving up for … for groceries, and, uh, new clothes. I wanted a pair of jeans.”

His cheeks flared, turning pink, and he mumbled an explanation: “I, uh, I only had a pair of shorts. Running shorts. And Scotland gets cold in the winter, so …” He glanced up at Belle and managed an embarrassed smile. “That’s why everyone bought the wizard story. They couldn’t see my shorts under the - this poncho I usually wore, and they didn’t know what ponchos were, so they thought I was wearing robes.”

Belle didn’t respond; she was forming a clearer mental image of Gold as a child, taking the pristine boy from earlier and morphing him into something else. Someone small, someone who couldn’t afford school lunches, someone who only had one pair of mismatched clothes. Someone who didn’t have time to read. She looked Gold over, trying to estimate his age - she guessed he must have grown up in the 60s or 70s. What was it like in the 60s for a kid in poverty?

“Uh, anyway,” said Gold. “I-I’d better go.”

He turned before Belle could say anything; she blinked rapidly, watching him go. In a moment, Gold was gone, the library door swinging shut behind him.

* * *

It was a month before Gold noticed the advertisements hung around town. Belle French, GED tutor. It took him a while to remember what a GED was; and when he did, he just froze, staring at the flier with wide eyes.

Miss French was a tutor. Gold hesitated, trying to think straight. He remembered his aunts discussing tutors when he was a boy - they thought he would do fine in school if he had a little one-on-one help. But they’d never been able to afford one when he was a kid, and it hadn’t occurred to him to hire one as an adult.

The downside, of course, was that Miss French would know exactly how stupid he was if she tutored him. But she wasn’t his tenant anymore, so it wasn’t like she could use that knowledge against him. 

He huffed out a breath and then looked around, making sure no one was watching. Quickly, he tore a little tab with Miss French’s number off and shoved it into his pocket, moving away from the advertisement.

It was another month before he did anything with her number. In that time, Gold checked out three books from the library -  _ The Borrowers _ ,  _ Winnie the Pooh _ , and  _ BFG _ . The first two were easy - Neal had owned the films as a child, and he’d watched them endlessly, so Gold didn’t have much trouble guessing the plot when he got confused. The third was a big mess. 

The first few chapters had been fine - difficult, but fine. And then the giant had shown up, and suddenly the letters didn’t make any sense at all, even when they weren’t dancing all over the place. Gold huffed as he read, getting increasingly frustrated. 

He snapped it closed and kneaded his temples for a moment, hunched over in his armchair. For Neal’s seventeenth birthday, Gold had gotten him a book called  _ The Familiar _ , and Neal had read it all within the week, gushing to Gold about the story and the format. Out of curiosity, Gold had picked it up one day - the text changed font and size constantly. Sometimes the words ran backwards. Sometimes they ran diagonally across the page. It was horrible, and Neal had read it within the week, and Gold couldn’t finish a children’s book with a few made-up words.

He sighed, fetched Miss French’s number, and took out his phone.

* * *

This isdn mrsdil. Are ho sil a gef tuot?

His is Mr. GUold. Aee yog sfil a HED pru.

IS os NR. HSOld. Are gou still a HED tour.

Gold squinted at his phone, huffed, and deleted what he’d written for the third time. He checked his watch and did some quick calculations; Neal would still be up. Gold pressed 1 on his phone and held it to his ear, listening to it ring.

“Hullo?” Neal said.

“Neal,” said Gold. “Hi. How are you? Are you eating well?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“How’s school?”

“Good,” said Neal. “Super stressful, but whatever. What’s up?”

Gold hesitated, looking at Belle’s number. “I, uh, I need you to write something for me in a text so I can copy it.”

“Sure thing,” said Neal. He never seemed bothered by these requests, though Gold was endlessly embarrassed by them. “Remind me to get you a smart phone for Christmas, by the way.”

“Okay,” Gold said. “I need it to say ‘This is Mr. Gold. Are you still a GED tutor?’”

Neal repeated the two sentences, making sure he had them right, and then there was silence. “OK,” Neal said. “I’ll send it to you after I hang up - are you getting your GED, Dad?”

Gold smiled a little ruefully. “Probably not,” he said. “Let’s be realistic, I don’t think I could pass the third grade.”

Neal was silent - a mark of disapproval. As a teenager, he’d furiously fought against Gold’s self-disparaging comments, but eventually he’d learned to stop. Gold being dumb was just a fact, and no one could convince him to believe anything else.

“Okay,” Neal said. “Well, I have a ton of homework, so…”

“Right,” Gold said. “I love you.”

“Love you. Bye.”

He hung up, and a moment later Gold received a new message. It still appeared misspelled, but he’d learned not to doubt Neal on these things. He forwarded it to Belle; her reply came surprisingly fast, and took him just a few moments to decipher.

_ Sure am, why? _

Gold hesitated for a moment, caught between calling Neal again and just answering himself. Finally, he decided to just not respond; he could visit Belle at the library tomorrow, early, and talk to her privately without this additional anxiety about spelling.

If his courage lasted that long.


End file.
